1) THE PRIORITY LIST David Menasche was teaching high school in Florida, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. A subsequent stroke forced him to give up teaching altogether.

He wanted to find out if his life — his teaching — made any difference, so he started an odyssey to find former students.

“Being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer gave me a sense of urgency, and I realized if there are things I wanted to say, I had to say them now,” he tells WBUR’s Here & Now. “Places I wanted to see, things I wanted to do — all I had was the moment to go and do it. And I’ve come to realize the only moment each of us are truly guaranteed, is this one. … I needed something like that to make the struggles of treatment worthwhile.”

In 2012, he reached out to former students, asking for places to stay while he traveled across the country. In two days, he had responses from students in 50 cities. He’s done now, finished a book, and still hopes there’ll be a movie in the future that will outlast him.

Today’s discussion: What teacher would you like to track down and thank for what he/she gave you?

A quick flip to NBC Nightly news and then we are again: Not caring about the weather.

There was national face time for Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman last night on the PBS NewsHour. He defended decisions to close schools again, acknowledging that schools may not have closed in these conditions years ago, but we’re a different demographic makeup than we were years ago.

By the way, does anyone recognize the location behind the mayor?

In Rochester, meanwhile, schools are closed today. But there’ll be varsity sports as usual. The same is true for South Washington County and several other schools because temperatures are to rise somewhat.

White Bear Lake is one of the few school districts in the Metro that is open today. On its website, the district defended its decision:

We are confident we can safely transport students tomorrow on or close to schedule.

After four days off in January as a result of weather, we believe it is important for us to offer the opportunity for students to be back in school and learning.

We are committed to do whatever it takes to assure student safety.

After yesterday’s announcement, several students took to Twitter to prove a little more time in class would do wonders for their ability to express themselves.

Mellaney Moore wore a hidden camera as she walked into schools in Moorhead, West Fargo and Fargo without checking in at the main offices. So the police investigated her.

“The investigation showed that she did what she did under direction of her superiors or superior or someone over at KVLY,” Fargo’s assistant city attorney said.

“Truly, there is no positive purpose to be served by the school district pressing charges or prosecuting Ms. Moore,” a spokeswoman for West Fargo schools said. “That is not the nature of what a public school does in a community.”

Mudslides, skateboarding, bullrush and tree climbing kept the children so occupied the school no longer needed a timeout area or as many teachers on patrol.

Instead of a playground, children used their imagination to play in a “loose parts pit” which contained junk such as wood, tyres and an old fire hose.

“The kids were motivated, busy and engaged. In my experience, the time children get into trouble is when they are not busy, motivated and engaged. It’s during that time they bully other kids, graffiti or wreck things around the school.”

Parents were happy too because their children were happy, he said.

But this wasn’t a playtime revolution, it was just a return to the days before health and safety policies came to rule.

AUT professor of public health Grant Schofield, who worked on the research project, said there are too many rules in modern playgrounds.

“The great paradox of cotton-woolling children is it’s more dangerous in the long-run.”

“But I like the job because I get money. I give the money to my parents for food,” one 13-year-old boy — 13 years old — says.

“We have no choice,” said Rafael Ramorez, 16, who dropped out of high school during his freshman year to start working as a miner. “There is no other opportunity. There is no other job.”

Bonus I: We have a winner in best Super Bowl ad of the year. It’s not on TV. It’s this one.

Kara Christian, 58, has been a Broncos fan since she was 5. “She’s the kind of ardent fan who arrives at games early to greet home-team players with hugs as they walk to the locker room,” AdFreak says.

Third hour: Novelist and National Book Award winner Richard Power joins us to discuss his latest novel, ‘Orfeo,’ which follows an aging professor caught up in the world of science, music and Homeland Security.

MPR News Presents (12-1 pm) – Husband-and-wife team James Carville and Mary Matalin, speaking at the Commonwealth Club about their life and politics.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) – A lot of Republicans are hoping for the chance to run against Democratic senator Al Franken and DFL governor Mark Dayton this fall. But so far no candidate from the Independence Party has emerged to run against either incumbent. Party Chairman Mark Jenkins says with every day that passes without strong 2014 candidates, the IP’s task of gaining traction becomes more difficult. MPR’s Mark Zdechlik will have the story.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories.

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Apparently Minneapolis is the only backdrop for interviews taking place in Minnesota. Oops!

I have a number of teachers I would love to thank. I was fortunate to thank one in person some years back. He died recently and I sent a note to the family expressing my thanks for the work he had done over the years. You just can’t say thanks too many times.

KTN

Two teachers come to mind: Mr Carlson, who taught Current Events, a sort of political science course. He taught all of us to think critically, and to debate with passion about politics and current events and made me the political junky I am today.
Mr Beck- Word Study. Monday was culling through Time magazine, and finding words we did not know. Tuesday was making a class list of 50 of those words. Wednesday was learning meanings, Latin roots, and usage. Thursday was review, and Friday was the test on those 50 words. All semester – what a great class for a budding linguist.

Julie

I would like to seek out and thank Carol Schaldenbrandt, my fourth grade teacher at Ramsey Elementary School. In her class, we were all brilliant.

We assumed that must be true because she brought in avant garde art films to discuss. We debated whether or not to boycott the Olympics. She brought us the ground breaking”blue-eyed/brown-eyed” activity on race – a gutsy move in our almost entirely white, suburban area. We did big things in little bodies.

Miss Schaldenbrandt made it seem like she was merely trying to keep up with our vast talents and was lucky all the smart kids landed in her class. The truth of course was that we were a random selection of ordinary kids assigned to an extraordinary woman.

A teacher now myself, I still learn from her. I can’t tell you how often I have reached for her memory in an unsure moment. When I don’t know what to do, I stand still and quiet just like she did, in the middle of the room just where she did, and remember my students are brilliant. And just like in her class, my students become what I believe them to be.

1) Teachers – I actually tried to find my HS art teacher quite a few years ago only to find that he had passed away a few years prior. I thinking of him occasionally and credit him for my interest in the Arts and for my becoming a graphic designer.

Bonus: i have always been interested in WW2 and it turned out he was a WW2 vet (wounded in the Italian campaign) and I was too young and stupid to ask him about his experiences. I now regret not asking him about that, but there was a real chance he wouldn’t have told me anyway. Thanks for everything Mr. Kvam.

4) Running amok on the playground – We did it back in the day and most of us turned out OK…

Jim G

As a retired public school teacher, I would like to thank the teachers that made my teaching career possible. I remember Mrs. Raymond, a reading specialist, who helped 3rd graders become better readers. I also would like to thank Mr. Chlebecek, my orchestra instructor, who opened up my world with the gift of classical music and encouraged my middling talent. Paul Anderson was my 10th grade writing teacher, I still remember his urging to revise, revise, and then revise again, again, and again. I cannot leave out the first face I saw at the very beginning of my educational career: my Kindergarten bus driver, Clarence Schanno, who was a nice man. We need more nice men in our schools today, and they don’t all have to be teachers.

Guest

Jim G, if you’re the retired SHS history teacher, thanks for encouraging your students to memorize the prologue to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. It’s one of the things from high school that has (mostly) stuck with me all these years.

BReynolds33

1) I do not know her first name, I know far too few of my teachers’ first names. Her name is Mrs. Tanner from Northdale Middle School. In 8th grade, she recognized a talent in me that no one else did until well after my undergraduate studies were complete. While I was surrounded by people telling me to go into woodworking, auto mechanics, and even business… she told me, “Write. You can write, so please never stop writing. What ever you do with your career or studies, please write.”

It took me another 15 years to figure out she was right. Thank you, Mrs. Tanner, for that simple instruction.

Dave

Coleman is essentially echoing what people on here were saying last week. Kids don’t have coats, and that’s why we have to close schools when it gets to only -15.

Mr Mayor, why don’t kids in your city have coats? And how does that bode for the future of your city?

Al

The teacher that comes to mind for this English major, funny enough, taught math: JoAnn Michna, who taught my 10th and 12th grade calc classes at Hill-Murray. Honestly, she was tougher than most of my undergrad and graduate-level professors. She brooked no excuse for submitting late homework, failing tests, or missing classes–even for school-sanctioned events like pep rallies (oh, did she loathe pep rallies…). On senior skip day, there was one teacher–Ms. Michna–who had a full class of 12th graders for her entire period. Anything less than your very best wasn’t good enough, and God help you if you tried to fudge your way out of a bad homework or test score. She was relentless, and we absolutely loved her for it. She showed a faith in us that I suspect a lot of us hadn’t seen yet, and maybe haven’t since. I often wonder where she is now. I hope that she’s enjoying retirement (not that I think you were that old, Ms. Michna…) knowing that, because she expected excellence from us, we learned we were capable of it, and carry that with us still today.